


Stealth Mission

by Entwinedlove



Series: Bingo Bonanza 2019 [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Fluff Bingo Quarter 2, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 16:46:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18525589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entwinedlove/pseuds/Entwinedlove
Summary: Bucky is extra quiet when he slips inside the house.





	Stealth Mission

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Fluff Bingo](https://fluffbingo.dreamwidth.org/) card #35, Square O3 - Quiet and also [Bucky Barnes Bingo](https://buckybarnesbingo.tumblr.com/) Square Y2 - Sam Wilson

[ ](https://i.imgur.com/cT9gsiI)

Bucky crept into the spare bedroom through the window, careful to shift his weight so the floor didn't creak. Once he was standing in the room, his eyes adjusted fast and he could see the generic floral bedspread pulled neat across the queen-sized bed. He knew if he lifted it up, he'd find hospital corners so tight he could bounce a quarter off it. He moved past the bed, though, out of the room and down the hall on the balls of his feet.

The lamp beside the couch was on. Sam was nestled in the corner of the couch with a blanket mostly tucked around him. A book, with its binding being damaged by the minute lay open and face down on the cushion beside him. Surrounding him on the floor was wadded up facial tissue. A little further away was a small plastic trash bin. It too was piled high with used tissue.

Sam snorted in his sleep and Bucky could hear the soft wheeze to his breath as it evened out again. His head was cocked at an uncomfortable looking angle and his mouth was relaxed in sleep. A wet spot was starting to gather at the collar of his sweatshirt.

Bucky wrinkled his nose. Of all the bodily fluids he had dealt with in his time, drool was always the one that grossed him out the most. He moved around the room, cleaning up the little white tufts of soft paper littering the floor. He picked up the empty soup bowl from the coffee table between Sam and the TV, making sure to clamp his thumb over the spoon so it didn't slide in the bowl and make noise. He took it to the kitchen and tidied up in there, though that room at least had missed most of the sick-person-fallout.

Or someone else had cleaned it up before Bucky.

He thought about putting a pot on the stove to boil some water; the air felt dry and that probably wasn't helping Sam's nose and throat. He decided he ought to do it, he'd just have to keep an eye and ear out for it. The tricky part was getting a pot out from the cabinet without making any noise. He moved slowly, making sure there was clearance above and below before pulling the pot out. Running the faucet posed another problem. Full blast might make the most swooshing sounds but he knew at the half-on mark it made an odd high-frequency hum. He opted for fully on and held the pot at an angle so the water landed in the crease where the side met the bottom. When there was enough water there, he turned the faucet off and placed the full pot gently on the stove top. He turned the burner on high and went back to cleaning up.

When everything was back to normal, Bucky decided to investigate the main bedroom. On his way by, he checked Sam over once more. He'd shifted a little and his blanket had fallen down but his neck wasn't angled funny anymore. A line of drool hung precariously from the corner of his lips as his saliva battled with gravity. When gravity won out, Bucky suppressed a shudder and crept away.

He wasn't sure what he expected to find in the master bedroom but this wasn't quite it. Steve sat in a chair in the corner, awake but still. Meditating, judging by the slow, measured rise and fall of his chest.

Natasha was imitating a starfish, sprawled out with her head at the foot of the enormous king-size bed they all shared. A pile of blankets was slowly oozing its way off one corner like ice cream left unattended. Her eyebrows were pinched in sleep. At least she wasn't drooling.

"Did you get them?" Steve asked quietly from the corner.

Bucky reached down and pulled a brown paper package from one of the many pockets of his tactical pants. It had been folded over the square merchandise inside so as to not crinkle. He handed it to Steve, who slowly unwrapped it. "Isn't she going to get cold?" Bucky asked.

"Nah. She's been complaining about being too hot. Sam's the one who wanted all the blankets."

"Why's he out on the couch then?"

"Complained that his nose was too stopped up when he laid down," Steve whispered. He finally pulled the four little rectangles from the brown bag. Four boxes of maximum strength cold medicine, two in regular and two in non-drowsy day-time formula. Steve read over the back of one of the boxes before nodding.

Bucky shifted his weight from one foot to the other in idleness. "Do you think these will help?"

Steve nodded and eased himself up out of his chair. "Hope so." He gestured back towards the door and Bucky exited the room before him. They went back out to the living room. Bucky went on to the kitchen to turn off the stove, pleased that the air in the room felt more humid. Steve was looking over Sam when Bucky pointed to the spare bedroom. When they were in the room with the door shut, Steve said, "I didn't hear you come in."

"Came in through here," Bucky said, pointing to the window. He closed it and started undressing for bed. "Saw Sam sleeping through the window in the front room and didn't want to wake him."

Steve pulled the bedspread down and got in. He made a face when his feet didn't have much room at the end of the bed.

Bucky reached down and untucked the hospital corners. "Bed's too small for you," he murmured.

Steve wiggled his toes at him and grinned. "Yep, but they get preferential treatment when they're sick." He opened his arms wide, holding up the blanket, and Bucky crawled in beside him. "I'm glad I don't get sick anymore."

"Me too," he said. "Two of them at once is bad enough."

Steve snorted in amusement.


End file.
